23
votes
What is the date of this photograph of a woman riding a horse sidesaddle?
ZIP codes were introduced in 1963, and ZIP is an acronym for "Zone Improvement Plan." ZIP codes were to be an improvement on "postal zones". Thus before ZIP codes existed one would write:
John ...
- 3,361
10
votes
Accepted
How did CGP Grey get his hands on old New York Times papers?
The New York Times website has details of where copies can be bought on microfilm and CD-ROM:
Sources for Full Text and Abstracts of the Times
Full Text
Complete Archive: an online ...
- 77.5k
8
votes
Accepted
Why did King Charles II cede New Amsterdam / New York to his brother James, Duke of York, in 1664?
He didn't, Wikipedia's word choice is bad.
Generally, "ceded" means a cession of territory between legally equal entities. That is not the case here.
What happened in 1664, was that Charles ...
- 97.6k
8
votes
What is the date of this photograph of a woman riding a horse sidesaddle?
I remember those days myself, as a child, in the early 1960s, for Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, where I then lived. Long story short, people didn't "abbreviate" a five digit code to two digits. They ...
- 105k
6
votes
Accepted
When did coal replace firewood in early America?
I'm not sure about New York in particular but for the United States as a whole, the crossover point happened around the mid-1880s.This is nicely illustrated on a chart included in the history section ...
- 20.8k
5
votes
Do We Know 100% of the Victims of 9/11?
There may indeed have been people there who were not known to be there by anyone, think possible homeless people squatting in the parking garages, and visitors from out of town with no relatives or ...
- 11.3k
5
votes
What was the population of the main area of settlement in New York City in 1890?
It looks like the problem you are going to run into here is that the detailed records for the 1890 US Census were damaged in a fire, then (purposely!) destroyed by the US government.
However, you are ...
- 119k
5
votes
How long did it take for mail to get to London from New York in 1919?
A quick check of the Blue Riband crossing times shows that the fastest vessels were crossing the Atlantic in just under 5 days (in either direction) by 1919. The average crossing time would probably ...
- 19.9k
4
votes
What is the date of this photograph of a woman riding a horse sidesaddle?
I think you are looking for Siegbert Salomon Prawer who was a professor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegbert_Salomon_Prawer
His sister Ruth Prawer Jhabvala moved from India to Manhattan in 1975 (...
- 41
3
votes
Accepted
Was it normal for New York schools in the late 1960s to be desegregated?
Yes, middle schools in the State of New York were desegregated in 1966.
School desegregation was decided for the entire United States in the famous case Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, but even ...
- 530
3
votes
What was entering Grand Central Station like in 1943, especially interior?
Happy centennial! 12 old-timey photos of Grand Central Terminal
In wartime: The main concourse is crowded with people on Dec. 14, 1941, during the unveiling of a government mural above the mezzanine ...
- 6,809
1
vote
Was it normal for New York schools in the late 1960s to be desegregated?
I don’t know about that. As a black kid I went to PS 221 in 1968 in Brooklyn
And my classmates were white, spanish , jewish, west indian , you name it.
- 11
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